Andrew Gideon wrote:
I don't recall reading of anyone complaining about the [GNS-480] UI in
the press. Have you a reference; I'd like to see the specifics of the
complaint(s). Like you, I've not tried one.

There are certainly things wrong with the CNX-80/GNS-480 UI (I've been
using it for a couple of years now). The biggest problem is that it's too
modal; there's too many pages hidden two or three layers deep and sometimes
you know what you want to do, but you just can't remember how to get to the
page where you can do it.

I think it also suffers a bit from trying to do too much. The ability to
have a blind transponder is nice, but hardly necessary. There's a
dedicated button (and a little bit of screen real-estate) devoted to
xponder operations; they could have been devoted to something else.
Perhaps a dedicated FPL button instead of an FPL soft key? I think that
would have made the whole box (a little) easier to use.

There's a whole page of fancy timer functions, but most of the time I just
want a button that I can hit RIGHT NOW that starts counting down from 1
minute (without interrupting the flight plan editing I was in the middle of
doing).

Overall, I like the box, but it definately has a steep learning curve, and
some UI warts. It really could have been a lot better with some better
usability testing before it shipped.

These are all complex boxes, and they're getting more complex as they add
features (interfaces to weather, traffic, transponder, fuel computers, CO
detectors, etc, etc, etc). Hopefully some of what we've learned about UI
design in the past 25 years will start to trickle down to the avionics
market and things will not only get better, but more standardized.